


With the Tide

by monsterradio



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A year between Cap's wakening and Battle of New York, Everyone calls Bucky a fish, Everyone is probably really out of character, Halfling!Clint, He's not having it, Hulk is an Mountain Troll, M/M, More Tags as I update, Old God!Fury, Orginal Female Character - Freeform, Original Mermaid Characters - Freeform, The Story really starts after the Helicarriers fall, This is what I'm writing instead of my elf fic, Vampire!Natasha, except for Tony, harpy!Sam, mermaid!bucky - Freeform, siren!Bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-24 03:01:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15621063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterradio/pseuds/monsterradio
Summary: James Buchanan Barnes. All public records say that he died in 1945. Only classified Hydra records say that he went missing in the North Pacific Ocean in 2009.Only the latter is correct.





	1. Chapter 1

_Experimentation 15, May 18, 1952: After finding that the asset - real name: James Buchanan Barnes - responded well with new DNA(See File 12 on Experimentation 8 - The Nymph Test), the serum we gave him allowing an opening in his DNA strands for new information, we decided to test new things. This new experiment will open the door to see if we can add magic using Creature DNA as a baseline for stronger Soldiers._  

_Theory: Subject WS1 will take to the DNA of a Siren, and be able to take on attributes of said Creature._

_Attributes we hope to accomplish are as followed; Sharper senses, including smell, sight, and hearing. Faster reflexes and the ability to camouflage, or hide from thermal scanning. The ability to Sing or Lure. Claws (Expected only on the biological arm) and/or teeth._  

_August 9, 1952: Testing was more interesting than we thought it would be. Subject reacted violently to the injection at first, but after delivering light sedatives, the subject calmed down considerably. When asked how he felt, the subject replied that his veins burned._

  _August 10, 1952: No changes, however, the subject’s skin seemed to have dried out to the point of flaking and an uncomfortable feeling._

  _August 17, 1952: A week has passed and no further changes._

  _September 15, 1952: Subject was sent out on a mission. He returned claiming that he feels his vision was sharper and is able to see far distances without his rifle._

  _Unfortunately, there was not enough progress to continue the experiment at this time, and the subject was put on ice._

~~_November 22, 1963, WS1 was sent on a mission to assassinate JFK. Immediately returned to cryostasis. No experiment data collected._ ~~

_July 4: Every year we have had the Soldier, this day seems to be troubling. The subject, when awake on this day, begins getting increasingly distressed. The subject often feels he is “Missing something” when asked why he is so upset. Though it is uncommon, on missions, he slips through agent’s view and turns up missing for a few days before being found. Motions have been made to stop all missions made with WS1 on this day._

_July 10, 1967: WS1 was thawed from his cryo-tube, and set into reconditioning. Doctors noticed, after hosing the subject down with warm water, that the subject had much sharper teeth, and a second eyelid. They also noticed that there were patches of skin that were falling away to reveal dark blue patches almost like fish scales. Doctors recorded that patches were rough to the touch, and they occurred on the subject’s face, neck, chest, back, arms and legs._

_July 13, 1967: Subject was sent on a mission and returned feeling dehydrated, but the mission successful._

_July 15, 1967: Subject was given more of the Siren DNA. Subject reacted violently and killed a doctor and a technician before they could administer sedatives. Doctors feel he is too dangerous and have mentioned thoughts of terminating WS1. Those thoughts have been immediately dismissed._

_July 25, 1967: Subject was placed into cryo after no further changes were found._

_January 14, 1972: WS1 was brought out of cryo and sent to reconditioning. Then into a hosing area, where doctors reported finding more changes. Fingernails on his right hand were elongated into sharp claws and, after the subject complained that his throat felt off, an X-ray showed that he had grown a second larynx and could produce two sounds at once. At a later time, thermal scanning was done, and WS1 did not show up on scans._

_January 15, 1972: WS1 was ordered to Sing for a group of civilians. Voice was scratchy from disuse, and nothing happened. Civilians were disposed of._

_January 17, 1972: WS1 was ordered to try Singing again for one civilian. The intended outcome was for the civilian to kill himself. Nothing happened at first. After fifteen minutes, the civilian picked up the gun and brought it to his head. The subject seemed thoroughly upset at the outcome of the experiment and refused to cooperate for hours._

_January 18, 1972: WS1 admitted that more scales were appearing on his body, mostly on his legs. When doctors looked, they found fins emerging from the skin on the side of his thighs and calves. They also found that his ears had elongated into wide frilled fins._

_January 27, 1972: No further changes found, and WS1 was put back into cryo after a successful mission._

_November 23, 1989: WS1 was brought out of cryo and set into conditioning, then to hosing. Superiors had chosen him as a mentor to young girls in the Red Room, an underground Russian agency that trained young girls into assassins. All extremities on WS1 were hidden under full face masks and heavy tactical gear._

_November 25, 1989: WS1 seems to have taken an odd shine to one Natalia Romanova, age five, the youngest in the Red Room program, going so far as to stepping in front of her and refusing to move, when Madame B moved to punish the young girl for doing a step wrong. He made no move to defend the others._

_May 28, 1991: WS1 was relocated to the US base of operations under Lehigh base. The subject was transported in cryo and was not brought out at this time. A full medical room and conditioning chair had been set up months in advance._

_November 17, 1991: WS1 was sent to retrieve confidential Super Soldier Serum. No witnesses left. Only casualties: Howard and Maria Stark._

_June 18, 2009: WS1 was brought from cryo and set into reconditioning. Even after reconditioning, the subject seemed uncomfortable and asked for water multiple times. The subject also seemed to not respond to conditioning. Doctors reported that WS1 was scratching at his legs hard enough to bleed. Due to fear of harming himself more, the subject was put back in cryo later that day._

_August 20, 2009: WS1 was taken from cryo and conditioning was attempted. The attempt was failed. WS1 was placed in a locked room._

_August 21, 2009: WS1 was assessed by Alexander Pierce, the head of Hydra. Upon reading all notes up to this point, Pierce had deemed WS1 a “lost cause” and we were ordered to terminate._

_September 2, 2009: WS1 was lost at sea after attempting to return to Siberia, where the other Soldiers are held. Over the ocean, the subject began screaming, even while heavily sedated, like he was a part of a fever dream or nightmare, and an agent pushed him out of the open door. After dealing with the agent, we attempted to look for WS1, but could not find him. All attempts held no success._

 

_All notes are to be held in the Soldier’s journal and not to be viewed by any clearance less than level Alpha._

~~

The experimentation had not gone as planned. The first Soldier was only supposed to have the advanced features of the Siren, but not any actual physical changes, and frankly, Pierce was surprised they let Barnes live as long as he had. He wasn’t too worried when the doctors contacted him to tell them about the Soldier missing at sea. Finding him would be a very low chance, and how are you going to explain finding someone that was already claimed as Killed in Action. Life went on, Hydra quietly pulling the strings on wars, on conflicts. They didn’t need Barnes.

Until the day in 2011 when Captain America was found in in the Arctic and was, miraculously, alive. They thawed him out and Fury got to him, gave him an apartment. Until Loki and Thor happened. There was a massive mess. Those “Heroes” needed to be taken care of, and Project Insight would be the perfect way to do it. Disguised as a way to keep criminals down, Alexander was able to slip under Fury’s nose, work his way in and make sure the world “Heroes” were one of the first on the target list.

Until Steve fucking Rogers figured it all out.

But, we can dive into that later. Because there’s something missing in all this. James Buchanan Barnes. All public records say that he died in 1945. Only classified Hydra records say that he went missing in the North Pacific Ocean in 2009. Only the last half is correct.

James Barnes had gone missing in the Pacific Ocean, but while everyone believed he simply died from either the rough contact with the water from the high altitude or from drowning, neither of those were correct.

The initial serum Zola injected him had with helped Barnes in many ways. It helped him survive the fall in the ravine in 1945, it helped him survive everything Hydra had put him through, including experiment 15, with Siren DNA.

The notes in WS1’s - what they had called Barnes to give a sense of identity without revealing his name - red book depicted the man as changing, everything was choppy and uneven, written by different people in varying levels of calm or disturbed, but it all seemed to point in one direction. Not only was it giving Barnes the abilities of a Siren, it was changing him into one _._


	2. Chapter 2

When James Barnes hit the water, it was like a surge of electricity that he would never be able to explain. It was like the chair Hydra put him in, except one probe was on his head and the other was on his feet. When he had been able to overcome the shock and was able to move, he didn’t have feet. He had a fin. No longer were his legs, well, legs, it was one singular fin, covered in the deep blue scales that had been occurring on his arms and face for years, his feet replaced with a beautiful flowing caudal fin that trailed after him like translucent silk in the water.

His flesh hand from the elbow down was covered in the dark scales, his fingers webbed together and tipped with sharp claws, while the metal hand was still blunt-fingered and it whined noisily in the water. He reached up as he inhaled and clutched his throat, shocked at the fact he was breathing under the surface, which had to be a good hundred feet up, finding gills on his neck, that flared and fluttered with each quick breath. He was also seeing as clearly as he had above the water, eyes focused perfectly, his hearing fine-tuned, already filtering out the crashing of the waves above him. The water was electric, buzzing like he could feel approaching things, and he tensed and curled up on himself, scared and alone and lost and _why didn’t they want me, wasn’t I good enough, what did I do wrong?_

The faces in the dark were new.

Handsome and beautiful faces came out of the shadows, sculpted and strong torsos and, tails, just like his, in an array of beautiful colors and fin shapes, sharp objects at the ready and he realized that he had nothing. He didn’t know how or why, but he wasn’t wearing anything, looking down at himself, all he seemed to have on were a pair of dog tags. He hadn’t noticed those before, did he always have these on? Where on earth was he? He recalled falling. Had he been on a plane? He couldn’t remember. He had nothing to defend himself with and he was lost on unfamiliar territory with a new body that he had no idea how he got. He was human, wasn’t he? He didn’t understand.

_“Who are you?”_ came an inquisitive voice and the dark haired man jerked his head up, eyes wild.

“I-I’m malfunctioning.” That had to be it. He was hallucinating and this was all a fever dream or some kind of drug-induced….something. His voice was rough with an accent that wasn’t his own. “I-I need to be fixed. Where is the doctor, I have to go-”

He started to shift, turning himself in the water and tried to move, but was blocked off by another shadowed figure pointing a much longer weapon in his face. The soldier tried to worm away, eyes wild, confused and terrified, but an order to “Stand Down” rang out loud and clear and each of the new...creatures, backed up in the water as easy as breathing. The Soldier went still as stone.

_“Who are you?”_ The question came again, from a different voice, stronger and command holding, but luring. He couldn’t find the source.

“I-I don’t know,” he stammered, “I don’t know who I am, or how I got here. But I, I have to find the doctor, he’ll know how to fix me before Pierce finds out.”

_“Fix you?”_ the voice laughed softly, _“But you do not seem broken. Beyond fear, there is nothing to worry about.”_

“Don’t you see? I have a - a tail! I’m human!” He flipped the tail up, and he was shocked to find that there was no bend like a knee, but an elegant curve to the middle of the tail. He ended up flipping upside down and he flailed his arms a little bit. The creatures seemed to be afraid of that movement and backed up a little further.

_“Peace, brother, and sisters, peace. He has nothing to harm us with. He is lost and confused, forsaken by his world, and we must help him.”_ The woman’s voice was gentle and kind, assuring her...flock, that the soldier meant no harm. He wanted so badly to laugh, he was a threat to everyone, everything.

A pair to his right twisted sideways and a woman of regal beauty swam forward, her tail an enchanting royal purple with silver silk fins. She was massive, had to be reaching at least twelve feet long, her chest covered by a single cloth that was over one shoulder and tied at her right rib, with what looked to be a kind of net littered with sea stars and shells and pearls drifting rather freely over the cloth and down to her navel. Her hair was a billowing blonde, her skin pale, but not deathly so, her eyes gold beneath a slightly foggy film.

She came closer and the soldier tried to wriggle away, but she set her hand on his right shoulder and steadied him, and he stared at her while she touched his hip and straightened him out, then along his long blue tail as if inspecting him. Her hand went up to his hair and ran her fingers through it, sharp points against his scalp making him flinch only slightly. She had an odd kind of smile on her face the whole time, and he found it hard to look away. Finally, she sank lower and reached forward and picked up the heavy tags that laid around his neck, and gazed at them for a moment.

“James Buchanan Barnes; Oh, what a regal name,” he stared at her as she remained eye level with his chest, both hands around the little tags, watching her pretty face as she squinted. “There, are numbers, but I do not know what they mean. Then it says, Bucky.”

“Bucky,” said the soldier, and nodded, “That’s, that’s what they used to call me. I don’t know who, but, someone, close to me, I think.”

The blonde woman seemed thrilled, dropping the tags against his chest and drifting backward, hands clasped over her chest, a brilliant sharp-toothed smile stretching across her face, “Oh, look! He’s remembering already. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

“Princess Araxi, we should go back to the palace, it’s not safe here,” said one of the women there, with a smooth looking body of blue and white and yellow, a massive dorsal showing when she turned in the water to look around, from the base of her neck to the base of her spine. Her hair was short and looked like he was shaved down on one side, navy blue and yellow streaks in the otherwise dark hair.

The blonde frowned, but nodded, and took Bucky’s metal hand without a hesitation, “He will come with us,” it wasn’t a request, “Lead on.” And the party moved, Araxi half pulling Bucky through the water while he fought to use his tail like the others. He got the hang of it fairly fast and was soon swimming with the princess instead of being towed along.

The party swam deeper, but Bucky felt no pressure, and it wasn’t long before Bucky could no longer see the light from the surface, instead there was a glow coming _from_ him, and it shocked him enough to jerk to a stop and sideways and slam into Araxi in shock, who let out a soft squeal.

“Wha-what’s happening?” he panicked, twisting himself to look at the glowing flakes of scale that lined his side fins and along the back of his tail, where he found a fin from his middle back to about where his knees had been. Little lights lined the spines of the fin and right down where his spine was. He lifted and stared at his right hand, his forearm dotted with the same light.

“Really?” asked the sailfish from earlier, sounding annoyed.

“Silence, Geneva, he doesn’t know about any of this,” she chastised, then turned back to Bucky, her expression softened, and she picked up his right hand and held it within both of hers. “You have a bioluminescence, some of us have it, some of us do not. It really only should happen in the darkness, to help you see,” explained the princess patiently, pressing her hands on his shoulders. The contact soothed him, and it took another minute before his breathing got back in order, but he nodded, looking bashful, and the party set off again.

When they started slowing again, they were coming up on a massive ravine, each side of the rock faces dotted with holes where lights emanated and shifted with the water. Flora danced with the shifting currents, long kelp and anemones and many other creatures like he was came drifting out of what he could only describe as the front doors. Shouts and songs of joy rang out around them, while the princess lifted her free hand and waved, the guards around her swam around her in what looked like a display, each person twisting in the water and crossing with each other.

They passed many holes in the rocks before coming upon a rather brightly lit castle that looked to be made out a monstrous twisted conch shell that reached from a slab of rock so far down that Bucky couldn’t see it, up to where they were swimming. It had to be at least fifty feet or more. It was impressive and beautiful, colors dancing over the shell in broad twisted lines that looked like something out of an artist’s painting.

“Steve would love this,” he murmured, then blinked, thinking to himself that he didn’t know anyone named Steve.

He followed Araxi inside where the bright lanterns mostly outshone his luminescence, and despite the looks he gained from still holding onto the princess’s hand, she had not let go, so he followed. He looked around to the massive ceiling and the spiral of the inner workings that seemed to have been cut out and built into rooms. It was all very open and beautiful, and Bucky wondered just what kind of world he had stumbled into.

Turned out that Princess Araxi was the next in line to the throne after her mother, an even larger version of the blonde with silver streaks in her long brown hair that was braided and adorned with shells and starfish, who was ready to take Bucky in once Araxi explained. Bucky tried to tell her himself, but his mind was blank and he couldn’t place two thoughts together for longer than a split second. But Queen Jennyver didn’t seem to mind, not really. She opened a spare room for Bucky and told him that Araxi would be the one to help him with learning on how to do things their way. He gladly took the offer, thrilled he wasn’t going to be left to fend for himself or hurt. He was tired of being hurt.

As time passed, he paid more attention to the soft glow of the underwater lanterns that dimmed when it was daylight and shone brightly during the night. Counting them, he had been with the sirens for more than a year, closer to two. He’d learned how to hunt and defend himself, how to maneuver in the water like the others. During training - which was almost humiliating, considering most of the pupils were young in age, maybe ten at most - he started using tactics that he had been taught in the military, and by his handlers in Hydra and then was encouraged to teach them to the others because of how oddly useful they turned out to be. He had been suggested for the royal guard within two months of training, but after what he had learned about himself, he didn’t want to fight unless necessary.

Sometimes new things came to him every night, other times it took weeks or longer, but he had begun to recall memories and people, faces mostly, names too, but those took him longer. As time went by, he remembered who Steve was, his best friend from before the Second Great War as the Sirens called it, remembered what he looked like and had dreams of him, dreams that confused and aroused him. And trust him, that was a trip, because his genitals weren’t external like they had been when he was a human, they came out between folds of scales when he was aroused or during what he found was a mating season. He had locked himself in his given room and refused to show himself until it was over because of how ultimately scary and deadly it could be. Men fought over females and females fought over men if they weren’t already mated, some died, some swam away, never to be seen again, and Bucky didn’t want to be a part of that.

He had been fully invited into the community by the halfway point of the second year he was there. He stayed in the palace, per Araxi’s request, and given cloth and belts, that went over his hips in a decorative fashion, his anal fin was cut, thankfully there were no pain receptors there, to make room for the cloth, and an intricate pair of knives made from whalebone and stone had been specially made for him. Those were mostly as a last resort, however, since he refused any kind of guard work or anything to do with fighting. Instead, they taught him how to produce medical salves and make jewelry from found items. Bucky was still waking with nightmares of people he couldn’t recognize, but with the help of Araxi and the rest of the Sirens, Bucky was happy here.

In 2011, two years after Araxi found him lost at sea, Bucky felt something pull him in the direction of the Northern Mainlands on the side of the Green Lady. Araxi understood, had gifted a powerful magic crystal that allowed the transformation between human and Siren, and a bag of food for the trip. He didn't fight the pull, Sirena told him it would only get stronger if he did.

He said goodbye, said he might come back, but made no promises, and he swam.

 


	3. Chapter 3

In 2011, sometime in June, Captain America was found in the Arctic, frozen solid and held still in time for over seventy years. When Steve Rogers rejoined society, there was a ceremony and he kept the uniform and shield.

A year later, Loki, an actual Norse God with a vendetta against his brother Thor, came to Earth and plagued New York with alien creatures and space whales. He met Tony Stark, a technological genius, a chip off the block of his father, Bruce Banner, who turned into some kind of gamma-radiated mountain troll when pissed off, and Natasha Romanoff was a daywalking vampire that was trained to be an assassin in some underground facility. Clint Barton was a halfling of elf and human and had done really well helping Steve transition into the new world.

All was quiet for the Captain until sometime in 2014, when SHIELD was blown wide open by a cancer he had once died to defeat. Hydra raised its ugly head again for the second time in Steve Rogers’ lifetime, and this time, it had almost enough to make him quit.

Fury was killed in Steve’s apartment after running from an assassination attempt. Steve got questioned _(Please see: Interrogated)_  by Alexander Pierce, who made it out like he was the bad guy. Brock Rumlow, one of his S.T.R.I.K.E. team followed him into an elevator and started talking about the Winter Soldier and Hydra while in an elevator down to the first floor, Steve demanded that Rumlow tell him what he knew, but couldn’t say much else because more people filed in the elevator, effectively making Steve shut his mouth and Rumlow looked smug about it.

Rumlow assured him that everything they did wasn’t personal and the elevator exploded into movement. It made him laugh. Those guys couldn’t even fight him when it was one on one. In an elevator full of people, they didn’t stand a chance.

Steve did what he knew second best to fighting, he ran, and Natasha found him and together, they found out that under Camp Lehigh, SHIELD was born with Peggy and Howard at the helm. They found a room with an electroshock chair and an empty cryo chamber all covered with cobwebs, and an analog computer with Doctor Arnim Zola somehow stuck inside it. Steve miraculously managed to keep any PTSD flares down, though did punch the monitor only once, which only seemed to annoy the soul inside.

They found that SHIELD had been good, once upon a time. It wasn’t until Project Paperclip where they recruited Schmidt’s Dr. Zola, did things go wrong. They were shown videos and flashes and images that looked too good to be real, a sliver of a video clip with a scream pitched in panic and pain and Steve knew that voice.

Steve asked about the Winter Soldier, and Zola avoided the question but flashes the name James Barnes on the screen long enough for Steve’s heart to stop in his chest.

Zola stalled enough for SHIELD to try and blow them up.

Natasha met Sam, a harpy - who really only had wings, a somewhat feathered chest, and taloned three-toed feet, but was mostly human shaped - he had met while jogging, wings dark and intimidating, but folded most of the time, and they liked each other. It was almost a little weird. Sam signed up for the cause within minutes of the pair of Avengers crashing his place, presenting an impressive file with him as a Harpy Paratrooper, and a handle on Steve’s emotional bullshit that Natasha was really, very impressed by, his codename crying Falcon.

In Washington, Steve found that the entire S.T.R.I.K.E. team had been Hydra. They also found that Hydra was out to kill him and Natasha, and Sam now too. They almost succeed if not for Maria Hill, who he had met before the Battle of New York. Steve had no idea what she was, she might have been human, but she had a terrifying amount of power and was able to get them out of the Hydra van and to Fury, broken and battered but alive.

Fury, with, it seemed like great difficulty, explains that he fucked up. That Pierce was head of Hydra and he planned to use Project Insight to kill off anyone that had the power to stop him. Steve saved the “I told you so,” for later, and brought Sam and Maria, with him while Natasha left to do some quick undercover work.

~~~

Alpha was locked.

Bravo was locked.

Charlie, Steve ran into trouble with Charlie.

Jack Rollins, one of his former S.T.R.I.K.E. members was waiting for him with murder in his eyes. Steve tried to reason with him, he really did, but Rollins already had a deathwish and fulfilled it as Steve took him down then locked in the third helicarrier. Once he locked in their chip, he slumped from blood loss from four gunshot wounds Rollins gave him before an explosion took him out, and a knife wound in his leg.

When the helicarriers fell and Charlie went with them, Steve was fighting a losing battle. His eyes wanted to close more than he wanted them open while the structure fractured. A beam fell from the domed ceiling and trapped him, near crushing his leg and he screamed as the helicarrier hit Avengers Bay and he found himself sinking, lungs filling with water.

As he lost his fight with consciousness, he swore he saw Bucky, brightly lit like an angel, hair long and tangly, but face pretty and worried, swimming towards him and calling his name in a tone oddly clear despite the distortion of the water.

~~

While Steve battled aliens and gods, as well as learning all he could and getting adjusted in the new century, it had taken Bucky three years to get to the Green Lady side of the North Americas by sea. The locations he had been warned about, the more hostile Sirens and other species of Mer that weren't kind to Siren-folk, spaned most of the open sea, and finding gaps took longer than he ever thought it would. He met other Siren kingdoms, which, when they heard his story, they either granted him sanctuary for a few nights or chased him off. He used the knives he had been given for hunting and self-defense, and his glow lit his way. 

There was still a pull like it was calling him home, and he followed it faithfully, traveling up a river to its mouth in time for something under the water to open up and spit out three flying ships.

In a matter of hours, they came crumbling down, having destroyed themselves in great bursts of fire and flame and noise. There was so much noise, he almost couldn’t focus, but he could have sworn he saw Steve jumping between the metal monstrosities.

When the last one fell, he knew he saw Steve, even from the distance he was at, trapped within the belly of the falling beast and Bucky moved forward without thinking.

There were voices behind him, Sirens of the Atlantic territory that had granted him stay for a few days after he’d helped them fend off a particularly nasty shark-merman and a few had escorted him up the river, yelling at him to stop, to come back. But that was Steve up there. He knew Steve.

He narrowly missed falling debris, tail much too long to be maneuvering around like he was. As a Siren, he was well over eight feet long, most of was his tail, but he didn’t care about the risk. He saw Steve sinking along with what seemed to be half a ton of steel pressing on him.

In times like these, Bucky didn’t think. Thinking made him hesitate, and hesitation in times like this was nothing but death. He swam through an open hole in the bottom before it crashed to the bottom of the Potomac, disrupting fish and fauna all together, and effectively blocked his entrance and therefore his exit. He found Steve and, using himself as a wench, lifted the beam off Steve’s legs so the blond slid from where he was trapped.

There were bubbles coming from Steve’s mouth like he was trying to talk to Bucky, but Bucky couldn’t understand it. The bubbles came to a stop and as Steve sank to the bottom, he reached a hand up in a weak attempt to reach for the Siren, his eyes barely open, trying to see who saved him. Bucky caught it with the metal hand and dragged the much larger man into his arms before finding an exit and darting for it.

He pulled Steve onto the shore a few miles away, away from the wreckage and away from the explosions still going on. He leaned on his hip over Steve and started compressions on his chest, desperate for any sign of life from his best friend. His gills had fluttered closed and he took slow breaths with his long-dormant lungs and they burned from disuse. He pushed through it, grimacing as he leaned down and gave a breath to Steve.

Finally, after an eternity, though it may have only been a few minutes, Steve coughed up water, and Bucky helped roll him onto his side while he coughed, but the blond remained unconscious. Bucky thought to himself that he favored that, he wasn’t so sure about explaining everything after Steve seemed to have put up with so much already. He stayed with Steve on the shore, his tail in the water and shifting with the gentle waves and he held Steve’s hand. It felt warm in his, smooth of scales but rough on his fingers and palms. Still drawing, he guessed, still the Captain America. That part he guessed by the suit, the old one that Bucky remembered seeing as he fell from the train so many years ago.

He looked over Steve for a long time, the shaggy blond hair and sallow cheeks. He hadn’t been eating well enough, but not long enough to make him sick. No, Steve didn’t get sick anymore. Though Bucky was surprised that Steve’s strength had managed to keep up with the small amounts of food he could tell Steve has managed, it was certainly not enough for him to be in top shape. Bucky felt Steve’s chest through the material of the thick uniform and he laid over him and just did that for a while. Steve groaned uncomfortably when Bucky hit his legs. Both broken, he’d say.

There had to be people looking for Steve, right? He had to have made friends in this new crazy future, had to have moved on from him at some point. That thought made him frown and he settled his forearms on Steve’s broad chest and watched his face and tried not to think of Steve with someone else. Tried to imagine, instead, the reaction he would have to seeing Bucky alive.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a harpy that found them first. Every instinct Bucky had told him to draw his weapon, so he did, whalebone knife held in the metal and at the ready, the blade jutted out away from his face as he leaned over Steve possessively. Tales of the war between Sirens and Harpies played through his head, even though he knew that war was done and had been for two hundred years, but it wasn’t that this man was a Harpy, it was that he was a threat to Steve in Bucky’s eyes. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt his Steve again.

After the Harpy attempted to come closer and failed because Bucky bared his teeth and let out a sharp and dangerous Song that clearly said back up, he seemed to give up and pluck a radio from his belt.

“I found Steve. He looks injured. Badly injured. Call in Fury, though, we have a…” with a glance at the defensive Siren, “situation.”

“What kind of situation?” replied a female voice that rang with familiarity within Bucky, but not enough to place a name or a face to the tone.

“A Siren. He won’t let me get close to Steve.”

“Point your weapon at him, tell him he’s interfering with government shit.”

“I’ve already told him I’m with the government and he barely bat an eye.” There was no response, and the Harpy sighed, and rubbed at his forehead, “Just get here, Romanoff.”

Bucky didn’t move the entire time the harpy stood there, a gun drawn, but the safety on and it was down by his thigh, merely showing it to the siren. Bucky was still Singing, low and dangerous, and he kept his position over Steve, baring his teeth and flashing the serrated edge of the whalebone weapon.

It had to be an hour or so before there were more footsteps, the sun was starting to go down, casting purple over the trees and sand. First, it was a grumpy looking older black man with an eyepatch and an aura around him that almost made Bucky flinch, his arm in a sling. There was some kind of glow under that eye patch, and he held an air to him like some kind of forsaken god or something along those lines. Next was a woman with her dark hair pulled into a bun, looking tired, but overall good, like she may have gone on a run and not a coup. She held an air like the Eye Patch Guy, but there was no glow on her from what he could see. There was another woman shortly after her, long curly hair pulled into a messy kind of ponytail, pale skin noticeably off color and fangs poked at her plump bottom lip. Her red eyes widened at the sight before her. Bucky knew her.

“I’ll be damned,” she murmured, and Eye Patch looked at her.

“You know him?”

“I did. He was human, at some point while I was in the Red Room. He trained me.”

The harpy spoke again, “Then tell him to let us take our guy.”

“I, I can’t do that. That’s James Barnes, Steve’s right-hand man, and best friend.”

“Then he should know that Rogers is wounded and needs our help,” said Eye Patch.

“Barnes doesn’t get that you’re help. To him, we’re all threats. Back up, I got this. Call Stark, he’s got an aquarium that takes up half a room. Tell him to fill it with sea water and move a medical bed in there.” Eye Patch raised an eyebrow and Red rolled her eyes. “Please, Fury. Barnes isn’t going to want to leave Steve’s side.”

The harpy watched while the dark-haired woman turned away, a phone already up to her ear and Eye Patch adjusted his sling. Red was moving towards them and Bucky’s hackles raised, tail lifting and slapping against the water, a sharp note whistling in his throat. “M’warnin’ you, Red,” he hissed out, baring his teeth.

“Easy, Soldier,” she said softly, kneeling a few feet away, looking over the dark scales and the soft lights that seemed to come from the man himself, “I remember you when you were human.” There was a noticeable pause in the Siren’s body language, confusion written over his face. “You protected me, in the Red Room. Do you remember that?”

Bucky stared at her for a full minute before his eyes almost bulged. “Natalia.” Red, Natalia, smiled softly, just a tug of her lips, hiding her teeth. “Wha-how old are you now?”

“Rude, to ask a lady her age,” she said back lightly, “According to my records, I’m thirty, now. You met me once, and only once when I was five. 1989.” She looked like she was twenty-one.

Bucky seemed to sag under the weight of the information, lips parted slightly as he began to pant. “That’s not, that doesn’t make sense,” he babbled, “And you’re not, you’re not human. You were when I met you.”

“Calm down, Barnes, one thing at a time,” she soothed gently, “You’re looking a little dry, why don’t you go back into the water while we wait on transport for the both of you,” she urged softly, and Bucky hesitated, glancing to the others. She understood. “They won’t hurt Steve, I’ll stay right with him.” After another second, she pressed further, “You trust me, right? You said you always would, back then.”

Bucky crumbled, partly because of his own exhaustion, and the other because of the weight of Natalia’s return. He dragged himself clumsily to the water, sliding in, all but disappearing if not for the bright whites of his luminescent scales. He kept his eyes above the water, watching them all warily as he took greedy gulps of water in. Natalia kept an eye on him while she did a short check over Steve. “Legs seem broken, and he’s not responding to me at all,” she called to Eye Patch, the one she called Fury, “We’ll need to get him straight to medical.” Bucky lifted his head from the water, whistling sharply, and Natalia didn’t seem to bat an eye. “He’ll be fine, and you’ll be with him,” there was a pause, then, “About how long can you survive out of water?”

Bucky stared at her. “I can breathe out of the water, I think I can walk too. I haven’t tried to, I haven’t needed to.” he finally admitted.

“We’ll need a quinjet with two beds, warn Stark that we’re bringing in a Siren with Steve.” Fury seemed impressed with her.

  
~~

Another slow hour trickled by before wind kicked up around them and odd looking plane landed not far from where they all were gathered. The back hatch dropped open and a short, stocky blond trotted out. He saw Steve and paled slightly, cursing under his breath until he noticed Bucky.

“Is that…?”

“It’s a Siren, Clint, get over it, we’re bringing him with us,” Natalia said with a finality in her tone that Clint didn’t argue with.

“Sir, Ma’am, not sure who you are,” he greeted the others, and the Harpy reached his hand out in introduction.

“Sam Wilson, Harpy Paratrooper,” he said, and Clint nodded, then returned, “Clint Barton, halfling archer.” Natalia rolled her eyes.

“How are we going to get the fish on board?” Clint asked, while Sam and Clint worked to put Steve on a stretcher and carried him inside the plane.

“I can walk,” Bucky supplied, warily looking at all of them before using his hands to slide out of the water fully, shaking himself of water droplets and focusing his breathing.

It took a minute or so, but Bucky gasped sharply, rolling onto his back as his tail thrashed, then seemed to dissolve, replaced by naked legs. He was suddenly glad for the bit of fabric that was tied on his hips. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He stood, shakily, and Natalia wordlessly offered herself for him to lean on, which he took with a fragile smile since his legs didn’t want to work like they used to. He still had the fins on his arm and the dark shadow of gills on his neck and ribs, but at first glance, he looked human.

After making sure everyone was in and Steve was settled on a stretcher locked down in the floor of the cabin, the archer, Clint, plopped into the pilot’s seat and raised the door.

“Thank you, for choosing Air Hawkeye, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride,” Clint joked over the PA. Nearly everyone rolled their eyes as the quinjet lifted off the ground and they headed for home, which, according to Natasha, was Stark Tower in New York.

~

It wasn’t long before they were landing again, but in that time, everyone introduced themselves, if only to put the Siren at ease. It helped, really. He learned that Clint is human, or at least a mix between a human and some kind of elf, an archer with high tech arrows and a wonderful accuracy, even at odd angles or fast-moving targets. He was a part of their team and was Natalia’s, who went by Natasha nowadays, lover, as well as a volunteer for blood.

Fury and Maria Hill were of the same race, of which they did not share, and any questions were avoided and deflected. Bucky could only guess angels or some kind of minor god, and when this was mentioned, Fury indulged in a rare, knowing smile. Sam, the kind Harpy, explained that he met Steve while they were running. Steve was apparently, a little shit, absolutely no surprise there, but the pair of them had become fast friends.

They all got along fairly well, though Bucky was still nervous and possessive and a little defensive when it came to Steve.

Bucky followed Clint and Sam when they brought Steve into the Tower, but was stopped at the door while Steve was taken inside. There was a massive tank that took up near half the room, and the sea water there called to him, but Natasha pulled him away.

Bucky met Tony Stark within a few hours of being at the Tower. And that was a very odd interaction because the first thing out of Tony’s mouth upon seeing Bucky was, “I didn’t order a strip-o-gram, so why is there a naked man on my couch?”

Natasha explained helpfully, and carefully, switching topics when Bucky started to get twitchy, while Clint offered him loose pants. Bucky refused them. Natasha’s story ended up taking an hour because Clint had tried to stuff a shirt on Bucky, and Bucky flipped him over and put a knife to his neck. Natasha had to tell them to stop acting like children. Bucky sobered pretty quickly at her word and asked about Steve, surprised when it was a voice from the ceiling that informed that the doctors were and Steve was stable.

Natasha was the one to lead him downstairs. There had been a ladder set up beside the tank and after pressing his lips to his forehead, he climbed the ladder and slid into the water, shaking near violently as his bones melted back together and he regained his Siren form. He would have to learn to deal with that at some point so that he thrashed less and the transformation was smoother, more willpower than surprise, but that could wait. He had more important things to focus on.

~

There was a gentle thrumming through the water a few hours later, when the clock on the wall read sometime between eleven and twelve, an alert someone had walked in, and Bucky twisted himself up and hung over the edge as Tony came in. He dropped water on the tile floor and watched Tony as he placed flowers on Steve’s bedside table and look at the sleeping soldier almost fondly. Bucky watched the exchange closely, curious.

“Pepper made me bring them,” Tony said, not looking up, but when he did, Bucky was up on the glass, arms perched on the edge and his chin resting on his flesh arm, head tilted. “Pepper, my, uh, CEO,” after no response, the man made a vague motion with his hand and cleared his throat. “I know we met earlier, but we didn’t actually say names. Tony Stark, Iron Man, Steve’s teammate,” he finally introduced, striding over to the large tank on slightly bowed legs and reached a hand up.

“James Barnes,” Bucky replied, trying to place where he had heard the name Stark before, “Bucky, for short,” he reached down with his flesh hand and grasped the hand and gave it a firm shake. His fins flared in the water, the soft glow casting shadows. “I was his best friend, I think.”

“I know. You’re in the museum. Says you died in action,” Tony replied and that made no sense to Bucky, but that was okay, things didn’t have to make sense these days. “So, uh, how did you end up like this? All, fishy?”

“Hydra performed experiments on me, trying to create the perfect soldier,” Bucky replied with a seemingly noncommittal shrug, “They did something that worked, I think, but worked too well.”

“Makes sense, Hydra is prone to making mistakes,” Tony turned, trailing his words slightly, and scratched his head, looking to Steve, then back to Bucky. “So, you’re not a merman, you’re an actual siren, right? The Singing bit true?”

“You want me to test it? It’s been a while.”

“No!” Tony all but shouted, then with a furious glance to Steve still dead to the world, he repeated it softer. Bucky gave a wicked smile, “Asshole,” Tony snipped, and Bucky shrugged. “Was just curious as to what the hell Tasha brought into my Tower.”

“I just want to stay with him,” Bucky’s bright eyes turned to Steve on the bed, a fond expression washing over his face, “He’s all that matters to me.”

“That’s sweet. You two were close then?” Tony leaned on the glass of the aquarium and looked up at Bucky perched above him, dripping water onto the floor beside him.

“I think we were. It’s all still fuzzy up here, even though it’s been,” he looked up and tried to think, “Six years? I think? Since they reworked my brain. I dunno, Hydra messed me up pretty good.”

“They messed us all up. Turns out Hydra was hiding within SHIELD. I’m sure that messed with Capsicle a hell of a lot more than it did all of us.”

“He’ll get past it, with time. He’s stubborn and strong like that,” Bucky said softly, “Does, does he talk about me?”

“You? Oh yeah, he never shuts up about you. Bucky this, Bucky that. Bucky would never let me get away with this. Bucky would love this. It’s, sweet, really. He cared about you a lot. Broke him up a whole lot when you disappeared,” Tony shifted his weight, his hands jammed in his pockets. “Has nightmares, of losing you,” Tony said softly like it was a secret.

“Is he with anyone?”

Tony shook his head, “Nah, turns down every chance of us trying to hook him up with someone.”

“Good, he’s still mine alone,” Bucky nodded, then turned and slid into the water to escape any further conversation. He hadn't gotten a lot of sleep in the past months and was intent on rectifying that, now that he had a semi-stable space to himself. Tony turned to watch as the lighting shifted, watching the siren swim the short length of the tank, making a mental note to make it bigger.

Tony promised to bring some food by, to which Bucky simply requested live fish so he could hunt a little, then turned out the lights and bid farewell.

An hour later, a man in a coat dumped a bucket of live fish in with him. Bucky almost pulled the man into the tank with him for startling him but figured it was better not to anger their hosts while they were treating Steve.


	5. Chapter 5

It was a long while before Steve showed signs of life, twitching and grunting before waking with a startled gasp, hand grasping his bandaged chest before looking over himself. Bandages covered his bare chest and arms, both legs wrapped tightly and it hurt to try and move them. His breathing returned to normal slowly as he scanned the room, confusion setting in at the sight of a massive aquarium full of small fish that were darting around, and a massive glowing form that moved up against the glass, then up.

There was a splash and, “Steve!” Steve thought he was dead. It was dark in the room, so he couldn’t see much, but that voice was familiar but familiar in a way that made his heart sink. That was Bucky’s voice, through and through, the Brooklyn tone something that was never truly lost.

He was dead, he had to be, there was no reason he could fathom that he could hear his best friend’s voice right now. The beam broke something and the doctors couldn’t fix it and he died on the table, or in the water, or-

“Steve!” Steve rolled his head to the side, at first seeing a long shadowed figure outlined in soft white lights, it twisted and shifted like nothing he had ever seen in this world, and he worked with a man who turned into a mountain troll and a vampire.

“JARVIS, turn the lights on,” he called, rubbing his eyes, and his voice was rough from sleep. The lights came on slowly, dim at first then getting brighter, and Steve thanked the AI before turning back towards the softly glowing figure in his room.

He wasn’t totally sure what he was expecting, but a merman was not one of those things. A powerful tail writhed in the water almost like an excited puppy, a natural luminexent glow getting overpowered by the lights in the room. Following the tail up from the wide caudal fin, there were short fins along his side, with short spines but a much longer piece that hung off and trailed in the water, much like the caudal fin. Upon the hips, there was a cloth and net tied into a knot, where a hint of a defined hip bone peeked off one side but showed a strong core of olive skin. There were also two belts crossed over those hips, a pair of knives resting there, but the knives were made of something Steve had never seen before.

Steve felt his face flush as he let his eyes wander slowly, up the taut stomach and broad chest, where his breath sucked in sharply at the webbing of scars on the creature’s left ribs, but not on the right, and he followed up to find… Someone he never thought he would see again.

“Bucky?” he choked on the name, forcing himself to sit up.

“You gonna check me out all day, or say hello, punk?” Yup, that was Bucky, with the sharp jaw and sharper tongue, high cheekbones and crinkling eyes as he teased him, but there was so much more to him, of course the tail was new, boy, was that new, but there were also scales spattered across those cheekbones and forehead and his right arm too, a fin poking off the side of that too. His left one looked like it was encased in silver. Steve realized with a jolt that it was a prosthetic.

“Buck,” Steve murmured, eyes wide as he took in his best friend, who looked great for a dead guy.

“Don’t wear my name out, kid, say something else,” Bucky said with a roll of his eyes.

“You’re a fish.”

“That...is technically true. Though I was hoping for something like, “You’re alive,” or, “I thought you were dead,” y’know?”

“Look, jerk, I just woke up, I’m still getting there,” Steve snipped, laying back on the bed with a grunt and a quiet hiss.

It was quiet for a few minutes before JARVIS spoke, “I alerted Sir and the others that you are awake, Captain, they’ll be down shortly.”

“‘Course, thank you, JARVIS,” Steve called up and sighed, rubbing his face. There was a pregnant pause before he asked “How are you here?”

“You sure you want that answer? Tony said you just had a run in with old friends of ours,” Bucky sounded tentative and Steve regretted asking.

“Guessin’ those friends of ours are the reason behind you’re…”

“Everything, and you would guess right.”

Steve let out a rough breath, hands clenching. “I’ll find them, every single last one of ‘em, and I will burn them. Took Peggy’s organization, took you, took everything and fucked it all up.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t say I’m all that fucked up,” Bucky defended, and when Steve looked over to him, his fins were flaring, trembling in the water.

“You’re a fish, Bucky.”

There was a sharp sound of anger and defense of two different tones, before he snapped, “A Siren, and I can kick your ass just like I did back then, so don’t you be talkin’ like I ain’t here or I will get outta here and knock you on your ass.”

“As hilarious as that sounds,” Tony’s voice cut into the argument and both men looked to the door to find him standing there with Natasha and Clint behind him, “You are a very wet creature, Barnes, no offense, and the equipment in here is sensitive and expensive.”

“You would think men from the 40’s would have better class than this,” Clint said in a low voice.

“Class ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. We’re from Brooklyn,” Bucky snuffed. Clint seemed satisfied by the answer, but also unnerved.

“Welcome back to the world of the living, Capsicle, thought we lost you,” Tony said, striding up to Steve’s bedside, “Brought you flowers.”

“From Pepper, right?” Steve asked, looking towards the shorter man.

“Rude, you think I can’t bring my friend flowers?”

“They’re from Pepper,” Bucky called, and Steve laughed softly at the affronted expression on Tony’s face.

“Ratted out by a fi-”

“If someone calls me a fuckin’ fish one more time, I’ll eat you,” Bucky swore, sending a pointed glare to Tony, who blinked, and nodded a half second later.

“By a siren,” Steve offered.

“Yeah, that,” Tony huffed, “I had a reason for coming in here,” he said, turning to look at Natasha.

“No you didn’t, JARVIS said Cap was awake and you said you wanted to come down,” Clint said and Tony sighed and rubbed his face.

“He may not, but I do,” said a much deeper voice, and they all moved aside as Fury strode into the room with a flutter of his coat - Tony was seriously wondering what magic that jacket held because the air conditioning wasn't even on. “Good to see you’ve made yourself at home, Barnes. You comfortable in there?”

“It’s a little cramped,” Bucky admitted.

“Hold on, aren’t you dead?” Tony asked, ignoring Bucky for a moment as he pointed to Fury, “I saw the news report.”

“Had to make it look like Hydra succeeded in killing me to figure out what else they were planning,” Fury explained with a slight shrug, “can’t kill me if I’m already dead.”

“Smart,” Tony hummed, “Anyways, what brings you down, big man, thought you had already left.”

“For one, had to make sure that Rogers was okay. And two, wanted to extend an invitation to Barnes for the team.”

“The team?” Bucky asked, leaning forward on his arms.

“The Avengers, Earth’s mightiest heroes sorta deal,” Tony explained, “We fight the big bad guys like aliens and Hydra.”

“Among other things. Having someone in the water might be good for us.”

“I don’t really know how well versed I am on fightin’ on land,” Bucky admitted warily, “and I don’t really want to fight anyone.”

“He could be like a guard dog,” Tony offered, “Add tubes through the Tower, in case people break in. No one will expect a siren.”

Fury ignored him. “It’s up to you, Barnes, the offer will stand. However, if you decide to, it’s not me who you tell. It’s him,” he gave a pointed look at Steve and the blond’s eyebrows furrowed. Fury continued, “I’m technically dead to the world. SHIELD is down too. I’ll be around, but, you won’t know.”

He then turned and strode from the room with a flutter of his coat, and Tony looked to Bucky still perched on the top of the tank. “Would you like to join the team?”

“I don’t want to fight anymore. Hydra had me killing people for at least seventy years.” Steve swore at that, “I don’t want to do that anymore.”

“It would only be people who deserve it,” Tony insisted.

“And who are you to decide that?”

“We’re above the government, if that’s what you mean,” Steve finally said with a sigh, “With SHIELD down, we don’t answer to anyone beyond ourselves. We only step in when the fate of the Earth is in the balance.”

“Then call me only then. I’ll follow you, Steve, best I can, but I don’t want to be a part of something that will use me to cause chaos.”

“You will cause chaos. Half the world thinks you’re just a myth,” Clint piped up.

“For that reason, we have to keep Siren existence a secret from the public as long as we can,” Bucky said, “Araxi and the others were very adamant that we try to do that, so no one comes looking for them. And I really don’t blame her or the other after what Hydra used their DNA for.”

“Araxi?” Steve asked, a kind of teasing smile on his lips.

“Siren princess of the Pacific ocean,” was the curt answer.

“Well, until we do need you for any missions, you’re welcome to stay here,” said Tony.

“Considering we’re at least an hour off from any large bodies of water, he kind of has to stay,” Natasha pointed out.

“That’s, fine, I just, want to stay with Steve,” Bucky said softly, sounding tired.

“Tell Sam I’m up too, for me, please, when you go.”

Clint stuffed his hands in his pockets, “He knows, but he’s wary of Barnes. Something about harpies and sirens never getting along?”

“That’s ancient and I won’t hurt him unless he hurts Steve,” Bucky huffed.

“Wait, what the hell happened?” Clint was already tugging over a chair and Steve rolled his eyes.

“It was a war between them and us, a misunderstanding, really. A dignitary had fallen into the ocean and drowned, and their ruler at the time blamed the sirens, claimed we Sang him into the water,” Bucky explained, “The ruler didn’t want to listen to us when we told him we had nothing to do with it and ordered his army to pluck us out of the sea and onto land. It’s why the Sirens went so far down, they used to be much closer to be with the water nymphs and the humans.” At the odd looks he got, Bucky lifted his hands, “I was not there for this. This was all told to me by Araxi. This happened near two, three hundred years ago.”

“And this, Araxi?” Clint asked, “She your girlfriend, or mate or whatever?”

Bucky squinted at him, and Natasha lifted up a hand, “No splashing, please, unless I am out of the room.”

“She’s the princess of a territory in the Pacific,” he repeated, “She helped me when she found me adrift with a new body I had no idea how to control.”

“How did you end up in the Pacific?” Natasha asked.

“Would you believe I was shoved out of a plane at 2,000 feet?” he asked with a deadpan expression. “This,” he flicked his tail, “was not natural. I was human, like Steve. After the fall in the ravine, and Hydra got a hold of me, they started testing different creature’s DNA on me, trying to “perfect” me. They used Siren DNA. I think it began slowly, they never kept me out of cryo for longer than a week or so, at most, so a lot of the time, the transformation was halted. Pierce took a look at me recently, a few years ago, really, and decided I wasn’t worth the funding. I think I panicked, or something, over the ocean, and Rumlow threw me out of the plane and into the water.”

“Rumlow? Pierce?” Steve rubbed at his face, “God, how could I have been so stupid.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Steve. You couldn’t’ve known,” Natasha sighed.

“The things, in the sky, Pierce was the one that sent them up, right?” Bucky asked softly.

“And Rumlow was a part of our team. I worked with him. And he knew you were alive,” Steve sounded angry, well and truly angry, and Bucky didn’t blame him.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky murmured, then, after another minute or so, pushed himself back into the water and back against the far wall, tail curling slightly.

“Steve, it really isn’t your fault.”

“Hydra was alive, all this time, right under our nose, above our heads, Natasha. How are you not angry about this?”

“I am, Steve, trust me. But look at him,” Natasha gestured to the back of Bucky as he faced away from them all, “Hydra may have torn what we know apart, torn him apart, but he’s still the same man. Not the one I knew, but the one you did. Be grateful for that.”

“How did you know him?” Steve asked after a moment, voice careful and quiet.

“He protected me in the Red Room. I was five,” she said, rubbing at her upper arms. Clint stood and wrapped his arms around her waist, keeping her grounded and in the present. “He was on loan from Hydra, a mentor, an example. I had, apparently, done something wrong, and Madame B was going to punish me for it. He stepped in front of me.”

“Still the same old Bucky. Always ready to be the shield,” Steve said softly, shaking his head.

“Even through Hydra’s conditioning, he protected me. He’s still your Bucky. Don’t push him away.”

“Even if I don’t, we can’t, there’s no way we can have what we did back then.”

Natasha smiled, a hint of a fang poking at her bottom lip, eyes glinting with a sudden understanding. “So all this time, I’ve been trying to set you up, I was going the wrong direction?” She also didn’t mention that Bucky could, in fact, become human, but figured Steve would figure it out soon enough.

Steve shook his head, “It was always just him, Nat, no direction but his.”

“You two are disgustingly sweet. Get some rest, Rogers. And talk to him.”

When Bucky felt like talking again, they did. It was all Steve could do, being bedridden, and with Bucky mostly trapped in the room, there really wasn’t much else they could do. Steve explained how he crashed the plane and ended up in ice, and Bucky near crawled out of the tank to hit him. He told Bucky about the Battle of New York, with some helpful videos from JARVIS, and how they knew an alien god. Steve told him about how Creatures like Sam and Natasha, they all were around, even when they were growing up, but at some point while the pair of them were otherwise occupied, they all just, came out, and it was accepted, mostly.

Nymphs helped with forests and fishing, the fire nymphs were often teaming up with fire departments for training exercises, and those got paid a lot for what they did. Witches helped with hospitals to further medical studies, as well as multiple other things, considering that wasn’t all witches could do. There were a few giants, but they stayed to the north and didn’t like the city. Vampires, the ones that could stand daylight, walked among everyone, and there were blood banks held specifically for the use of vampires, where they could have the choice of feeding directly or have bagged blood. Harpies and other winged were often used in the Air Force, they could fly quieter and were much more effective as far as reporting goes. Sirens were considered a myth, which was hilarious, all things considered, but, as it turns out, it was only because of agreements with dignitaries of the seas that they were kept as speculation.

Bucky retold as much as he could remember about being held with Hydra, the attachment of the arm and the testing of Creature DNA, the missions they’d send him on and the way all of Hydra twisted words and made it seem like he was doing good in the world. Steve seemed upset with that, so he dropped that topic. But then, told him about the Sirens, and their world, their castles that he visited and the homes of the different seas, shells and carved rock faces, old underwater buildings or sunken ships, it was all different. “You woulda loved ‘em, Stevie, they looked like they swam out of one of your paintings.”

He told him about the bloody mating seasons and, yes, it would happen for him, but since he was mostly confined to a tank and there were no other Sirens around, any instinct to fight wouldn’t be as bad, but the urge to fuck would still be there. It would happen around spring, he explained, and seemed to not care, except spring was already coming up and Steve had the urge to remind him but put it off for now.

Bucky’s stories seemed like something out of a fantasy, of the other sirens he met and the creatures he fought along the way, of the things he learned about himself and the new way he fought, using his tail as something to wrap around and hold down, like a giant snake. Steve was impressed, really.

Bucky told Steve everything, everything he could remember, everything he couldn’t. Steve told him Peggy was alive, and Bucky’s face had lit up brightly until Steve further explained that she couldn’t remember anything longer than a few minutes. She was dying, near a hundred along with the both of them, and it pained them greatly, but the life she lived. It was worth it. And it was even better that she wouldn’t know how her organization went so wrong.

There was the good and the bad, and they caught up on it all.

It was another week before the doctors cleared Steve to be able to walk and move around again - thank God for miracle serums - Natasha had brought down his sketchpad, and Steve spent a whole day sketching Bucky, then colored it in with colored pencils and then taped it up against the glass so Bucky could see it. Tony started showing Bucky blueprints for tubing that could go through the tower and Bucky offered some advice for plants and bigger fish.

The time spent there was wonderful, easy, full of a kind of companionship he didn’t know he was missing until now. He couldn’t think of any other place he would rather be.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter does have smut in it, if you want to skip it, that is perfectly fine. When I wrote this, I needed an excuse to write mermaid Bucky fucking the hell out of Steve. If it ain't your thing, don't worry, I'm not insulted.

Bucky should have seen it coming, really. He told Steve it would start in spring, but his sense of time was still way off being underwater and, long story short, the mating season started up in the middle of the night while everyone was asleep about two weeks after Steve was cleared to leave the makeshift hospital room. Mating “season” only lasted for a week at most, twice a year, but once a mate was claimed, the affected are calmer and mates don’t fight anyone. It was still terrifying, the urge to spill blood in order to protect what was his. Steve was his, at least he had been, once upon a time.

He hoisted himself out of the tank, sliding himself over the edge, thankfully Stark had put a kind of foam since Bucky liked to hang over the edge, and landed on the padding with a wet thud. It took him until he got to the door for the transformation to take over, and he cursed at the small bit of cloth that hid absolutely nothing. He walked as fast as he could, hair still dripping over his sensitive gills, the metal hand held over his crotch. The transformation wouldn’t last long, really, it wasn’t made to be used during mating, made to last through the fog that clouded over his mind, but as long as he got to Steve, he’d be fine.

Tony was awake, apparently, and Bucky passed by him like ghost and Tony, in turn, screeched like a rabid Banshee because “whatever that was, it was cold and, oh my god, go away, get that thing away from me.”

He made it into the elevator before his legs gave out and his legs kicked and flailed together before being consumed by scales and fins. He was Siren again, but that didn’t matter, because JARVIS was already taking him down to Steve’s floor - the room with the tank being in one of the highest rooms - without Bucky saying anything. He used his hands to drag himself through the halls, ears trained for anything and his nose flaring as he took in the scents of the apartment. He was drowning in the scent of parchment and oil paints, leather and metal, but he needed it from the source.

He found the bedroom where the scent was coming from, the shadow of Steve sitting up in bed, rubbing at his eyes. All Steve saw was a mass of lights, illuminating the long form of his best friend. It was rather spooky, the Captain thought sleepily, also tossing in the question of why JARVIS would wake him up so early. He leaned back on his hands and blinked the sleep from his eyes as the form slithered closer, disappeared, then was on him.

He grunted heavily as the weight pinned him down to the bed and there were lips on his, teeth and tongue and hands, one warm and rough and the other - “Ah! Jesus, that is cold, Bucky!” - but it was smooth and careful and he liked it, actually.

“Be mine,” the Siren breathed, before kissing Steve’s breath away again and again, “Be mine, be mine, be mine. Like you used to be.”

Steve wasn’t entirely sure why the sudden frenzy, but it was heated and heavy and there was a taste to Bucky’s lips that Steve couldn't get enough of.

“Always was yours, Buck,” Steve answered, hands sliding over Bucky’s back and feeling the dip in muscles and the fins along where he thought Bucky’s thigh should have been, and the elegant fin from his lower spine to where he thought his knees used to be. Steve wasn't completely sure as far as proportions, Bucky was a lot longer than he was when he was human, there were extra parts to explore and new things to find. His hands wandered up, careful of the closed gills at the Siren’s ribs, and felt along his shoulder blades and the mess of scars and scales there.

Bucky hissed quietly at the hand roaming his left shoulder, at the way that hand traveled back down and grabbed at what used to be his butt, hoisting him higher and making his breath hitch because Bucky had been hard the entire journey here and the drag against skin felt so good.

“You’re pretty excited,” Steve teased lightly, and Bucky bared his teeth at him as he pushed himself up on his arms, hips shifting to feel some kind of friction. Steve, looking between them, flushed a dark red that spread over his cheeks and down his neck and chest.

Bucky’s cock wasn’t as thick as it had been when he was human, at least it wasn’t at the tip. It was tapered, thick where the scales split, sloping and tapering up into a very small tip. It had to be longer than six inches, Steve thought with a heavy throb of his own cock.

“M’sorry, I - I just knew I needed you,” Bucky started, his fins shuddering with every breath.

“Don’t apologize, Buck, it’s okay. Is this the start of your mating season?” Bucky flushed and nodded, looking away, but Steve turned his face to look at him again with gentle fingers on his chin. “It’s okay, just, we’ve gotta take it kinda slow, this body of yours is all new to me.”

“Just need you, Stevie, please,” Bucky breathed, nosing against Steve’s jaw and nibbling there.

“You have me, just, hold on a sec,” Steve murmured, then gripped Bucky by the shoulder and flipped them, landing right below Bucky’s pelvis and the jut of his cock. Now that was a weird thing to see, and once JARVIS had turned on the lights Bucky looked otherworldly under him. There was a flush brushed across his cheeks, his long hair - it was due for a cut seeing as how it was nearly down to his middle back - splayed out like a halo, chest rising and falling in quick breaths and, looking down, Steve felt his own breath stop once he got a good look at Bucky’s cock. It was thick around the base where there looked to be a slit between two flaps of scales, right below that was a puckered hole and it didn’t take long for Steve to guess that was his anus, or something like it, because it glistened with some kind of slick.

Bucky seemed slightly dazed from the roll, eyes trying hard to focus on one thing and that was Steve now hovering above him, staring at the curve of his slim cock and not touching like he so needed. He needed contact and touch and attention or his skin was going to tear off and leave him so raw.

He hadn’t felt this way under the ocean, Bucky realized belatedly, while Steve got off him and dug around in his drawers, then, after finding what he was looking for, divested himself of his sleep pants. There hadn’t been this much of a need around any other Sirens, no urge to breed with anyone. He supposed it had something to do with him already having a tie to Steve, even if he couldn’t remember it. Bucky just never gave it much thought before and to be honest, wasn’t at the moment either.

“Just hold on, Buck,” Steve consoled softly from somewhere to his right, and Bucky’s tail lifted and slapped against the bed.

“I can’t, Steve,” the Siren gasped, hips rocking up into nothing and his fingers twisted in the bedsheets.

“You’re gonna have to, it’s been a while since I’ve been with someone,” he said softly, “And your, anatomy is a little different from what I’m used to.” Then there was a weight on his hips again, just below there his cock throbbed against his scales, and the pop of something opening.

“Just touch me, Stevie, please, m’goin’ nuts over here,” Bucky was not above begging at this point, his brain reverted back to primitive instinct.

There was suddenly contact and his brain short-circuited, the strong hand around his slim cock calloused and perfect and stroking at a jerky pace as Steve’s breath shuddered and a broken sound fell from his lips. Bucky’s hands went to Steve’s hips, clenching and clawing gently at the soft skin under his flesh hand. There was the sharp scent of copper and Steve gasped sharply while Bucky whined low in his throat, his cock throbbing heavily.

Cracking his eyes open, he got the image of Steve with a hand back behind him, preparing himself, he guessed, or tried to, with every nerve ignited, he couldn’t focus on one thing or another beyond the contact to his cock. He could hear Steve’s hitched breaths and quiet moans, the feeling of a hand moving against his scales.

It was a few minutes before Steve was shifting, gripping his slim cock and lifting it up, shuffling forward on his knees and sinking slowly down onto him. Bucky’s jaw dropped in a wordless cry as Steve paused when it got big enough to feel the stretch. Steve pulled himself up, then pressed further down, gasping and groaning as the cock seemed to wriggle in him, pushing itself deeper as Steve tried to control the descent.

Bucky was drowning in feeling, every memory of Steve before he fell from the train held nothing as real as this, the squeeze and the feeling and the weight of Steve as he settled down on his hips. His fingers twitched against Steve’s hips, eyes flashing as he watched Steve gasp and shudder above him.

“That has to be the weirdest,” a gasp and a shudder, “Feeling. I can feel it, moving.”

Bucky groaned throatily, the sound produced was two different octaves, and his head dropped back on the pillow, eyes fluttering. He lifted Steve by his hips, tail thrashing as he rocked his hips up, already completely sheathed, but his cock squirmed ever deeper and Steve gasped sharply.

It was instinct mostly, when the siren wormed his tail around him and flipped them. Steve had let out an undignified yelp and squirmed under Bucky as the Siren pinned his shoulders and pressed him to the bed with a hiss, rolling his hips back then forward in a hard thrust. Steve saw stars and a sound was punched out of his mouth that sounded kind of like Bucky’s name.

Bucky hissed and snarled, expression twisted into one torn between anger and pleasure as he rocked his hips and scratched at Steve’s shoulder. Siren mating was bloody, the first time around, paired mates ended with scratches and bites and sometimes, though it was rare, some didn’t make it through at all. After that, though, paired mates were less violent when it came to mating seasons, and most were rather level-headed, all things considered.

Steve was blind with pleasure, every thrust a perfect hit, his Siren’s cock wriggling and thrashing in him and making him wonder, really, if it was going to be like this all the time. When his eyes cracked open, he caught the look on Bucky’s face, full of a kind of pleased rage that should have scared him, but it only served to turn him on even more. Bucky’s claws were sharp too, where they dug into his shoulder, and a part of him felt this was more an intense wrestling match than sex as his legs wrapped themselves around the scaled hips.

Everything was too fast, everything hurtling right towards that cliff and Bucky couldn’t stop. He should be taking this slow, it was Steve’s first time with a man since, well, he had no idea when, it was their first time since the fall in the ravine, but Bucky was too far gone since he got into the bedroom that it wasn’t very long before he slammed home and emptied himself into Steve, dropping down and latching his teeth into Steve’s shoulder in a claiming bite. Steve howled at the bite, the sudden pain in his shoulders shoving him those extra few inches and he spilled between them, shuddering and gasping.

Bucky was singing quietly, each breath huffed and hard, but a low song strummed through both vocal cords, high and low notes curling and vibrating and laying themselves directly into Steve’s bones while the Siren shivered above him.

There were a few long moments before Bucky finally returned to himself, detaching his teeth from Steve’s shoulder and laving over that with his tongue while he pulled himself free, only having to go a little bit since his cock had already slipped back into the folds of scales and hid once more. Well, until the next flare.

He shifted himself until he could lay beside Steve in the bed, with Steve’s back pressed up against his chest, his tail half wound around Steve’s legs.

“That was,” Steve started, sounding breathless and wrecked.

“Rough, m’sorry if I hurt you,” Bucky sputtered out quickly and quietly, and Steve shook his head.

“Amazing,” Steve corrected softly, and his breathing was still shaky, “And the bite?”

“To tell others you’re taken,” the Siren explained gently, sounding upset more than anything, then shifted his head and lapped at it again with his tongue, blinking as the action caused a full body shudder from the human in his arms.

“You always were possessive,” Steve hummed, then yawned.

“Territorial, and then possession comes with the change in species, I think,” Bucky said softly, then, after another long moment, “Will you be my mate, Stevie?” He let out a sound as the large soldier wriggled around to face him. Bucky took a second to brush his fingers over Steve’s face and feel at his skin.

“Was wonderin’ when you would propose,” Steve replied, leaning forward to press a sound kiss to the Siren’s lips, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and pulling him flush against him.

They’d be fine, he knew they would.


	7. Chapter 7

A year later, the Avengers found Loki’s scepter from the Battle of New York in the hands of Hydra scientists who apparently hadn’t got the memo that Hydra had gone down. There had been two enhanced that had given them the runaround and had gotten Clint injured and Bruce’s lullaby was done perfectly, turning him back to Bruce and not the troll. Bucky hadn't gone, all too happy to swim in the Tower and stay away from the fighting, which was reasonable, and they had enough firepower.

They had won, got the scepter and gotten away with only minor injuries to everyone else. It was a win for everyone, hoping that this was the final piece to take down Hydra and the Chitauri for good.

Then Tony had started fiddling with it, figuring out that the crystal inside was alive and wanted to build on it.

He started to make a new AI, something alive, based on the crystal inside the scepter. Saying how the world needed something called Ultron, that it was a suit of armor around the world, that if they could do this, they wouldn’t have to worry about things coming in, and would only have to worry about the people in it.

Bucky made his way to the party, Tony had lived up to his word about the enlarged clear water pipes that twisted through the living and lab floors, peeking through walls and floors and ceilings and connected to pools in nearly every room. This was supposed to be his second appearance at the party, but as he passed a lab, he paused and watched a blue ball of light attacking a yellow one, the voices, once in distress, panicked and unfamiliar, the other begging. That one Bucky knew, that was JARVIS. He pumped his tail, spiraling through the water and towards the penthouse to warn someone.

The party had been full of people at the start of the night, of doctors and people in the Avengers Tower that knew about Bucky and the Creatures that lived with them. There were war veterans that had fought alongside Sirens at one point, old Generals Steve once knew. A team of doctors that knew just about anything and everything. The Avengers and their close friends, people that could handle seeing Bucky and be trusted not to tell.

Bucky had made an appearance earlier, Steve announced him royally too. He’d called attention and stood up, drink in hand, “Introducing someone close to me, a war hero and a prisoner of war until only a few years ago. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.” He was greeted with applause when he came out of the pool, flushing under from the attention. There was a toast to him and everything, but the number of people flustered him, and he excused himself for a while, wandering the water tubes until he witnessed the blue and orange lights.

He breached the pool on the penthouse floor, showering everyone in droplets of salt water as he snarled and hissed and sang a song of anger, dragging himself from the pool and towards Tony, who did the best impression of a scuttler crab as he backed up from the oncoming Siren, deaf to the protests of his mate who was standing from his seat and calling his name.

By now, he could tell there were only a few left, Tony and Rhodes, Thor, and Natasha, who was missing her shoes, Maria Hill and Helen Cho were settled close together, Clint was settled on the couch, twirling a drumstick, and had been laughing about Thor’s magic hammer that was settled on the low counter around the pool.

“What did you do?!” he screeched, willing the transformation to happen halfway towards Tony, who squawked as the Winter Soldier got to his feet, stomped his way over the little counter, and gripped him by the lapels of his jacket.

“Whoa, whoa, hey, this suit is designer,” he squeaked out.

“Whoa, Buck, what’s going on?” Steve tried, settling his hand on his shoulder, which Bucky shook off and his song turned much darker, baring sharp teeth and flexing the metal, which whined and groaned and the claws on his flesh hand tore through the fabric like paper.

“It killed him, whatever that blue...thing, was. It killed him.” At the confused looks, he continued, “Try calling JARVIS, Tony,” Bucky sneered and Tony seemed to pale, even more than he did when the Siren came for him.

“J-JARVIS?” Tony stuttered out when there was no response, he tried again, and once again, nothing, a realization dawned on him and Bruce shook his head out of the corner of his eye.

“What did you do, Tony?” Steve asked voice laced with a poison that made Rhodey look down.

“He created Ultron,” said Bruce, with an air of exasperation.

“Ultron?” Steve echoed.

“You rang - ?” The entire room buckled at a sharp squeal of feedback, and Bucky dropped Tony in favor of clapping his hands over his ears, his hearing much keener than everyone else’s. Bucky was left gasping, while everyone else was looking back towards the door, where one of the broken Iron Legionnaires stood, popping circuits and looking like a puppet without some of its strings.

This...thing stood there, babbling on as Steve fired questions, and Clint fired off an arrow from a small fold-out bow, but the robot did nothing but have another just behind him, ready to take its place.

“This, this is what you’ve been doing with the scepter?” Steve sounded so utterly disappointed in Tony that Bucky could taste it.

“You are toying with a power you do not understand, Stark, why not tell us?” Thor sounded pissed.

“Because he knew we wouldn’t approve,” Steve sighed and rubbed at his face.

That sharp squeal happened again, and Bucky actually whined, turning to drop his head against Steve’s back.

“Are we just going to talk like I’m not - _fzzt_  - here?”

Natasha carefully pulled Bruce backward, murmuring that it was better for him to get out before things got out of hand. The doctor seemed to agree and followed easily as she moved them up the stairs, trying not to call attention to themselves.

“Why are you here?” Steve asked, an arm reaching back to take Bucky’s hand while he stepped to look for himself.

“Is that - that - that - dammit -” the robot smacked itself in its head while Tony pointed at it and called “Language!” The broken legionnaire staggered again, “A Siren?”

“What of it?” Steve was now on the defensive, hand tight around Bucky’s.

“Why do you follow them, Siren?” There was a pause, then, “Barnes. Ah, now I see. Captain America’s right-hand man, and - oh, lover, too.” The legionnaire sounded almost disappointed, “Really? A human? Of all things?”

“Who I do is none of your concern, you bucket of bolts,” Bucky snapped.

“Humans are a plague, a disease,” it sneered, “After what Hydra did to you?” Bucky sucked a breath and the metal hissed quietly as he flexed it. “ _You will be the new fist of Hydra_ ,” they said.” Somehow it was in Zola’s voice, and Bucky’s knees went wobbly and he dropped to the floor with a shaky sound in his throat, “and they threw you away when you became better than them. Just like the Avengers, they’ll leave you in the dust because you’re better than them.” The glowing eyes turned to Natasha and then up to Bruce on the second floor, “Just like you two. The daywalker and the troll.”

“Ah, we don’t mention the Other Guy,” Tony shouted out and the eyes turned back to him, flashing red. Steve didn’t blame them.

“So, do you have an end goal here?” Steve called out, still holding onto Bucky’s hand, squeezing tightly.

There was a beat, and it said in a mocking of Tony’s voice, “Peace in our time.”

The walls exploded.

Robots, the legionnaires, the ones Tony designed for backup and keeping civilians out of unsafe areas, smashed through the walls behind the self-proclaimed Ultron, and suddenly, there was a firefight. One flew right towards Steve and Bucky reached over, grabbing a close table and swung it in front of them, but the robot flew right into it, and the two of them went sprawling back and into a glass partition, and Bucky hissed as the glass scraped at his bare skin.

Hill had fallen between the low counter and the couch, firing at anything she could aim for with a handgun in one hand and her phone in the other, while Rhodes shot from a handgun and his War Machine gauntlet before another blast knocked him backward. He landed heavily on one of the clear acrylic tubes of water Tony has webbed around the room with a shout, the one he hit was suspended above nothing but a floor ten feet down and he scrabbled to hold on, but slid from the tube and fell to the floor below.

When Steve and Bucky sat up, they saw Thor flying across the room with his hammer at the ready, and the robot he was after fell to pieces under the might of his swing. A blast was fired and landed near where Natasha and Bruce stood on the stairs, and she grabbed Bruce’s hand and pulled him up, half shoving him into a nearby room while she came back with a gun that Bucky was 90% sure she had on a thigh holster under her fit and flare fifties dress. Bucky was across the room while Steve ran up the stairs and jumped on one of the ones flying, wrapping his limbs around it like a 200-pound koala, which only got him slammed into the wall as the robot readjusted and flew backward. He was then grabbed and dropped onto the bar counter, bounced and fell the floor in a shower of glass.

Clint was running, staying mostly out of the fight, jumped and crashed through a glass pane, sliding down a small ramp on the side of some stairs, where he saw Steve’s shield. He made a grab for it while Tony took a leap of faith onto another robot’s back, pulling at wires in the robot’s neck. The robot he was yanking on went dead a few seconds later, and he dropped with a thud and a loud grunt.

Bucky took a diving leap into the pool, just in time because one of the legionnaires made a grab for him, but missed by a second and an inch, and he twisted down the tube. He swam his way back toward where the tube peeks through the lab, and watched one grab the scepter, and fly through the windows, gone.

One of the bots that had no legs made a last stand as it hovered, hand raised and palm glowing with deadly intent on Helen Cho, the brilliant doctor, but it stopped before the shot was taken. Steve yanked it from the air and threw it to Thor, where it shattered and lay in pieces at his feet. Natasha was standing on the stairs behind a beam and was firing at the last one in the penthouse, but Clint was one step ahead and called for Steve’s attention.

“Cap!” Barton hurled the shield in a smooth arc and Steve grabbed it from the air in mid-jump, twisted and released. It soared through the air, smashed through the middle of the robot, and it shattered to pieces as the disk sliced through its midsection and the shield lodged itself into the wall.

“Well, that was dramatic,” the first robot, who was still staggering by the broken wall, muttered “I’m sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn’t think it through.” There was a pause before he leaned back, taking in everyone gathered, to Natasha and Bruce coming out of the door behind her, to Bucky as he slid out of the pool once again and moved to stand behind Steve. “Creatures are the world’s saviors, and yet, you outcast them, shun and shame them, or coerce them into fighting for you. There’s only one path, to peace,” he said, “The Avenger’s extinction.”

Thor’s hammer sailed through the air and smashed Ultron into the wall.  
  
The room turned its attention to Tony, who started to laugh, of all things. Bucky was shaking, Zola’s voice recording making his brain turn on itself and Steve wrapped an arm around him and helped him sit in a nearby chair that wasn’t covered in glass.

“They, they took the scepter,” he gasped out, eyes darting around the room at the faces. Too many faces, too many people. He wrapped his arms around his chest, hugging himself, and Steve kneeled in front of him, cupping his face in his hands, shushing him quietly as a song curled out of his throat, high and wavering, distressed and panicked.

“Steve,” Rhodes said gently, coming up and settling his hand on Steve’s shoulder, his other hand clutched at his side, “Get him out of here.”

Steve nodded gently, and urged Buck up again, an arm under his, though was careful of his gills, and led him out of the room. There was a bedroom that was miraculously intact, and the old soldier helped Bucky sit down on the bed. It was dark, and without JARVIS there wasn’t anyone to call for lights, so Steve stood and hit the switch by the door, and it creaked slightly with the movement. Bucky flinched with the light, and Steve apologized softly. Maybe they had all grown a little spoiled by JARVIS.

“Talk to me, Buck, what do you see?” Steve murmured, kneeling in front of him, expression open and careful.

“The doctors, and Zola. That horrible little rat,” Bucky shuddered and curled, groaning though one larynx as the other spiraled out that distressed song, low and wobbly.

“You’re safe, Bucky, Zola is dead. Every trace of him is dead.” Pierce had made sure of that while trying to annihilate him and Natasha.

“But Hydra is still around,” the Siren whined, fingers carding and pulling through his own hair.

“They won’t find you. No one knows you’re here. And if Hydra does come, we’ll fight, Buck, ‘till the end of the line.” Steve had always been Bucky’s anchor, his tether to the real world. He had to find and follow it back, feel his way back to earth to stand by him. “You’re my mate, you told me how important that was to you. To protect and defend, to comfort, yeah?”

Bucky breathed a shaky sound and nodded, but his fingers were still pulling at his hair and one leg was jumping up and down in a nervous tic.

“You’re fine, Bucky, I promise,” Steve hummed, ignoring the sudden smashing of something breaking in the other room. Presumably, someone slamming Stark into something. “You’re safe and with me, and nothin’ and no one is ever going to take you away from me.”

Bucky believed him, with every ounce of his being, and soon he was able to breathe properly without it being stuck in his chest. He followed Steve out to find Thor gone, but Natasha was holding Tony down with one arm and baring her teeth in clear warning. Clint had a smug expression, while everyone else looked remarkably grim.


End file.
